My full game v0.1 review: The game is overall decent, with Hard mode having the prospect of no size limits. Hanna’s animations are quite awkward though.
The levels are designed fine for the most part, except in level 4, just after halfway through the main path, there’s some weird invisible collision that ought to not be there, and I wish there were some enemies, along with a Warden that the level’s missing, on the alternate path with the wide gap to emphasize its difficulty, as otherwise you’d skip the entire level taking it, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on defeating enemies. Other than that, the polygonal-style terrain of the levels is quite charming, and there’s a healthy variety of enemies. I'd think it would be cool if there were special crates that guarantee giving you a Soul, as opposed to a random chance, which would be neat for secrets in levels and such. It would also be nice if there were more kinds of levels only accessible from defeating the Keeper boss in a run.
Now here we get to the attack methods. There are only two, being what I call the “Dart”, a short-ranged projectile attack, and the “Bomb”, a lobbed explosive that detonates about one second after bouncing. The Dart is very underpowered compared to the Bomb, due to its short range requiring you to be close enough to enemies that they WILL notice you, while the Bomb’s arc trajectory is visible, thus predictable, and can go quite the distance. Sure, the behavior of each attack can make it more suitable for certain enemy types, like the Dart possibly being good for stationary enemies or ones requiring multiple hits, and the Bomb for enemies that you’d rather not notice you. But the Bomb can easily deal with ANY enemy in that context, even Wardens (the mini-boss) can be cheesed with the Bomb. Really, what will improve this by a LONG shot is how your attacks can improve from your body parts increasing in size. Some parts may increase projectile/explosion size, while others increase their range. Additionally, some body parts may add extra projectiles/explosions for them if you’d like to add that. The attacks severely need to be improved. One more thing to note, the movement and camera take time getting used to. Then there's Aim Perspective, which is much more janky and does not adhere to Hanna’s size, causing her to block half the screen at sufficiently large sizes, making it difficult to aim properly.
Now, it would be nice if most enemies did take more than one hit, and gain a larger detection radius upon them taking damage, on top of the improved attack system. Beetles (the Goomba of this game) would take two hits, Bees (airborne stationary turrets) and Ladybugs (grounded stationary lobbing turrets) three hits, Rhino-Beetles (bigger Beetle variant) four hits, and Hornets (extra dangerous Bee variant) six hits. Those fast, tiny, self-detonating bastards should obviously only have one hit and remain unchanged. Wardens shall mostly stay the same, only having a larger detection radius upon taking damage to actually engage them.
One more thing: The Keeper boss is virtually impossible to defeat on its second shield phase on Hard mode, due to the sudden enemy spawning and rapid-fire missiles making it too chaotic. You are guaranteed to be hit on that phase, considering you can easily cheese the first phase by using the Bomb on him outside his detection range, and possibly his first shield phase if you can manage to jump atop the outer ledges and defeat all the enemies with the Bomb from there. But alas, the Keeper won’t get out of his shield phase until you trigger him. The very least you could do is slow the missiles in the second shield phase, and possibly remove them in the first shield phase, as they WILL likely catch you off-guard the moment either shield phase starts. In any other case, you can clear all the other levels without taking damage by virtue of the Bomb.
Important highlights: The attacks need improvement, controls and cameras are wack, improving enemy health and behavior is ok but optional, and most importantly, make Hard mode actually possible when it comes to the Keeper, as those runs are effectively meant to be infinite.
